Identity

Unlike many poems that use flowers as symbols, Noboa Polanco’s “Identity” does not describe the flowers as aesthetically pleasing. In most cases, poets would use particular flowers and invoke their particular symbolic meanings. Roses symbolize love, for instance, and orchids symbolize beauty. Noboa Polanco’s speaker challenges this tradition and instead refers to flowers as an undifferentiated mass that exist “in clusters” (Line 16). The only suggestion the poem makes of particular flower species is in Line 20, when it references “fragrant lilac” (20). Otherwise, the flowers are not depicted as individuals. Instead, they are used as symbols of interdependence, conformity, and passivity. Weeds are described, in contrast to the poem’s flowers, as free, independent, and self-determining.

Height plays a vital role in Noboa Polanco’s “Identity.” Not only are the weeds always described as “tall, ugly weeds,” suggesting the heartiness and health of the plants (Lines 4, 22), but the weeds are shown to be geographically higher than their flower counterparts. Weeds grow on “cliffs,” cross “beyond the mountains,” and are compared to “an eagle wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks” (Lines 5, 12, 5-6). Vertical height is often associated with being closer to God, actualizing one’s true self, or simply climbing the ladder of success.